


Monsters

by hatstand



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Whump, rodents of unusual size, stupid heroic poe all over again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-08 03:39:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12855951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatstand/pseuds/hatstand
Summary: An injured Poe barely makes it back to D'Qar, and finds it deserted. But not for long.





	1. Chapter 1

BB-8’s plaintive whine wakes him and he sees it below them at last, green and glorious. Home.

Poe doesn’t like handing over the helm to an astro, even when it’s BB-8. Poe likes to fly. Poe likes his hands on the column and the stars in his eyes.

Poe also likes being alive, so screw all that romantic starry-eyed crap. He’s hurt, not stupid, and the fact that he slept at all means he needed it. But landing? His ego’s not quite ok with handing that over. Not when he’s limping home to D’Qar one week late from a routine recon run, with Black One in something less than combat-ready condition and its pilot not far behind.

‘This is Black One entering atmo. Please confirm landing clearance. Might want to back up off of the deck - I’m gonna be coming in a little bumpy, guys.’

He waits, grimacing in anticipation. _Oh lord, Poe finally shows up and he’s gotten himself blown up again. You ever gonna come home without trashing your ship, Dameron? They’re called evasive manouevres, buddy._

No response. D’Qar’s atmosphere is ringed with an asteroid field and blessed with stormy weather; half of why they’ve stayed safe so long, fuzzing up the comms. Poe flips the channel and sends again.

There’s a mournful whine from behind him that makes his eyes roll - but his neck rolls back too and he can feel the strain of favouring one side for so long. Maybe a medic standing by wouldn’t be so bad. They’re low on bacta but he doesn’t need enough to heal it all, just a few patches. And sleep. More of that. He’ll be fine.

Still nothing.

Then a burst of angry static, like a crossed wire; half-picking up something off another channel. It startles him, jerking him in his seat.

Yeah. OK. Bacta. Yes please to bacta.

Poe tries one more frequency: tap code, basic, last resort that hasn’t been used since the Rebellion, ignoring BB-8’s grumbles. The General will know it; she’s the one who taught it to his mom.

Still nothing.

They break through the clouds, the stick juddering unhappily under Poe’s hands, and BB-8 makes a different sound of dismay.

‘Yeah, I see it,’ murmurs Poe, jamming the stuttering engines and pulling up to circle.

D’Qar base is below, and it is deserted. Nothing on the landing bays. Not even ground vehicles. There are the familiar hills and warehouses, bunks and bunkers, a small satellite array. But it all looks like no one’s been near it in forever.

BB-8 spools up a life-signs scan that tells him what he already knows. Teeming wildlife beyond the perimeter. But the base is dead.

Bug out.

Abandon ship.

For the Resistance: has to be absolute worst case scenario. They don’t have the allies to flee to or the resources to leave behind: scanners, med room, not even the sheets he’d been sleeping on. Someone knows where they are; is planning an attack they needed to bolt from. So he needs to bolt right after them - except he has no idea where they’ve gone. And the x-wing’s battered right s-foil is beginning to complain at a pitch even he can’t pretend is going to get them back into orbit.

‘I’m setting her down, buddy,’ he croaks, hearing the knot at his heart he didn’t realise would come out in his voice, and feels desperately glad he’s not quite alone.

 

 

*

 

 

The base is silent.

Eerie.

He instructs BB-8 to stay put - he needs to know that any sound he hears is a potential threat, not a curious droid getting its nose into something it shouldn’t - and climbs with difficulty out of the cockpit.

His right side from ankle to hip, elbow to shoulder is burned. A direct blaster hit on the right flank of the ship that set molten metal against his flightsuit and welded it to his skin. The x-wing’s fire defences kicked in, showering him with powder. It put out the fire but now it’s welded to him too, like an ashy layer of clothing, or skin, or - at this point it’s hard to tell. Poe is mainly trying not to think about it, and it seems this stellar plan has got him this far, so.

It fucking hurts to move, though.

It really fucking hurts.

He drops hard into the tarmac, no ladder, both boots, and it knocks the breath right out of him; leaves him resting his forehead against the foothold and gasping and realising that there is a blaster up there, and that he needs it, and that there is no fucking way he can get back up there without help.

Poe kind of hopes no one got left behind, because that was a rookie mistake and he’s already feeling pretty far off the whole poster-boy reputation right now.

Though he wouldn’t argue with a little help, honestly. Snap smirking as he offers his clasped hands to step him back up. Kare producing a ladder. Kalonia appearing with a gurney and a hypo and sweet oblivion.

Poe makes a fair fist of swinging himself back up solo but he feels things - skin - more - tearing, and a sharp deep pain, and in the absence of Kalonia and that magical hypo, he gives up. He needs to find a box or a crate, anything to get that blaster. Because this base is deserted, no life signs, but -

Why does he need a blaster again?                   

BB-8 throws out a long string of concerned beeping.

Poe focuses very hard on showing his life signs, which will all totally be fine once he gets a tiny little rest and a sleep and a lie down and -

This results in more beeping, which wasn’t the plan. Then BB-8 is suddenly next to him, which was definitely not the plan, except apparently Poe isn’t good at making plans when he’s not very well, which he has to concede he is not.

BB-8 says so.

Poe thinks about lying down - but apparently BB-8 doesn’t like that either, and jabs him hard in the flesh of his calf.

Oh. OK. Poe feels the adrenaline rattle through his system and it makes everything hurt one hundred times more than it did - but it cuts through the shocky muzzy thinking and kicks him right back on track. He breathes against the cooling flank of his ship, waiting to even out.

‘Thanks, buddy.’

BB-8 rocks, coy but proud, and whirls towards the main hangar.

It’s wired. Poe can see the explosives before BB-8 wails out a warning.

He feels a little sick at the idea of it all blowing to nothing. Pilots aren’t meant to make it too personal, their bunk, their canteen, but home is where you and your buddies are; he believes that. They blew up Starkiller from here. They brought Luke Skywalker back. They lived, too, between the battles and the fear. They lived, and loved, and played dumb pranks, and ate awful food, and yelled at each other. Like a family. All of them did. This place matters.

But the entrance to the med unit is the same, and so is the pathway down to P5: bombs and wires. His bunk. A crappy tiny windowless cubby - but in there he had his photographs and his new jacket and a haja plant that somehow didn’t die, he still didn’t know who it was who kept sneaking in there to water it but it sure as hell wasn’t him, just someone who knew he didn’t want it to die but couldn’t quite get his shit together to keep it alive.

 _Don’t mourn anything that can’t talk back._ That was his mother. So Poe sets his shoulders and walks away before he can blow himself up trying to rescue a freaking plant he couldn’t take care of when it didn’t even matter, though it still feels wrong.

They walk - limp, roll - back to the ship.

BB-8 wants to know : what next?

Throwing up next to hangar six is what’s next, apparently, because his gut didn’t like that adrenaline shot and his right leg is on fire and he’s probably in shock, now, again.

But it’s a good question. He doesn’t have techs to confirm it, but he knows in his heart the x-wing is going to rattle into pieces if he tries to take it through atmo again - and that’s assuming he can get himself back up into the cockpit without passing out. Even if he can fly, he has nowhere to go. Resistance protocol is clear and concise: no breadcrumb trail. Any clue they left for him could be read by someone else. He’s not going to find a path to the new base here.

And he can’t get inside the base without blowing himself up.

No water, no rations, no real shelter.

So he’ll have to find a neutral place to set down, elsewhere - on this planet he knows was designated uninhabitable apart from this one single area which was fenced to protect them from the indigenous dangerous life - and hope he can find something to eat before something eats him.

Of all the shitty places he’s ever wound up, he’s pretty sure this is the shittiest.

Until he hears a familiar, gut-wrenching screech in the cloudy skies above, and sees three TIEs begin their landing trajectory - followed by the heavy grey curves of a First Order troop carrier.


	2. Chapter 2

Finn wakes up.

For real, not that muffle-headed drooling blur of a person he was the last time - though he made it all the way off the bed that time, felt the soles of his feet flat on a metal floor before he swooned glamorously into someone’s waiting arms.

Poe was there, he thinks. Unless that was before. He’s woken up before, a lot, and Poe was there, sleeping by the bed or reading in a chair and Poe looks like he would be good at catching people, probably. He’s pretty sure.

But Poe isn’t here now.

Rey isn’t either.

No one is. And then the bed lurches and threatens to dump him on the deck as engines groan, and Finn realises - he is not where he was.

He is not where he was.

It’s fine, it’s fine, he’s adapting, he’s good at adapting - except now he’s sitting up and his back hurts, his back actually really hurts to the point that he would maybe even report it in case it’s statistically relevant, because they have to log that and then you get a medic.

Except he’s not where he was, he’s with the Resistance now, and they know his back hurts. And, you know. Care.

Unless -

Unless that was all -

He kneels up and stumbles off the bed, clutching the sheets to give him purchase on the floor and this reality, this strange unfamiliar space around him and -

‘Finn! Good heavens, lie down, you’ll do yourself a mischief. I’m sorry - we’re on limited supplies, can’t quite keep you in the manner to which you’ve become accustomed, hmm? Yes, that’s it, back in bed. Good man.’

It’s a woman, older, brown hair and eyes that laugh kindly at him as he does as he’s told. His doctor. Kalonia, her nametag reads. She’s familiar in that way that makes him think they’ve spoken and he’s been reconditioned since and isn’t meant to let on he remembers. Unless they don’t do that. Do they do that? He hopes they don’t do that.

Anyway he’s lying down now, on his face, and she presses a hypo to his flesh that makes everything totally ok, yes sir.

‘Where’s Poe?’ he slurs out, because he knows Rey is somewhere else, doing a Rey thing, an important Rey thing, it’s going to be exciting and important, so he doesn’t mind, but Poe is meant to be here being all sleepy and nice in a chair for him to wake up to. He definitely remembers that.

Kalonia’s face shifts; eyes sliding, lips tight. She’s got a secret. A secret about Poe.

‘There wasn’t time,’ she says, and a line arrives between her eyebrows like a crease in a sheet. ‘When the evacuation signal came - there wasn’t time, you see? I’m so sorry.’

He feels her squeeze his shoulder gently and then he doesn’t know anything except quiet, and rest, and a deep internal and unplaceable sense of wrong.

 

 

*

 

 

Poe is running before he even thinks to.

Trying to, anyway. BB-8 bumps past him, frantic as the cloudy skies above fill with the too-familiar screech of TIEs. They’ll have scanned the area for tech; that’s what they do, Poe knows from Finn. Tech not life. Says it all.

So they’ll be headed for the base and they’ll have picked up the comm tower and maybe the ship and maybe the droid and fuck, move faster, dammit, please.

He makes it out into the open space of the landing bay where Black One is sitting, cockpit open, inviting. It should be the most beautiful thing he can imagine. It almost is, still, even now. If he’s going down there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. Except for all that burn damage he knows is hidden on the far flank, and the fact that he’s not sure he can even get into the cockpit let alone fly, and the way a TIE is practically combing his hair as it flies overhead, and also he might throw up again.

BB-8 wheels pertly into the ladder location, spins its head, and gives Poe a stare that does not need words or beeps to be clear.

‘Sorry, buddy,’ murmurs Poe, one reluctant boot on the droid’s body allowing him the extra height needed to lift up into the cockpit.

BB-8 rolls imperiously away, as if silently agreeing they need never speak of this again - and reattaches to the ship.

Poe takes a little longer to get in place. Sees stars when he straightens his leg. Straps himself in with one unsteady hand. Knows there’s a flight helmet in here somewhere and decides he can live without it. Wonders where the blaster is and realises it’s somewhere down near his feet, which means unstrapping himself, and he’s not sure he’ll be able to put those buckles back when he’s done so oh well, no blaster. It’s fine. He’s flying them out. The ship has blasters.

The sky is busy with ships now and if he doesn’t take off now -

He could not take off. The ship has blasters. The base is wired. He could wait till they’re all down and surrounding him and blow them all up in a beautiful big boom.

But if there’s a chance to do that from the air...

To fly one last time...

His right side is lit up with a white-hot pain from the sprint and the panic - but he’s running on adrenaline of his own now. This ship is fucked beyond belief - but it’s got enough juice left to give him one hell of a last ride. Drag a host of them down along the way. Maybe even time his last dive into the complex and light it all up.

Poe does not have a death wish. Poe really really likes being alive; all the talk and tastes and touches that come along with that. He’s going to miss it. All of it. He’s got regrets and things unsaid. But you don’t do what he does without being ready. And it’s one hell of a lot more appealing than trying to find a clearing and making nice with the local fauna while the bad guys figure a way past those detonators.

‘You want to try bailing out over the trees out there, buddy, I can arrange it,’ Poe promises as he primes the engines and feels a steady thrum up his spine as they hum into life.

BB-8 chirrups an appalled reply that makes Poe laugh hard enough to hurt, and as he taps the take-off sequence in he knows it’s shock and bravado and danger and all the rest, but it works and it’s everything that has gotten the pair of them to this point, so what the hell.

He feels the solid undeniable uplift as the landing gear stops bearing weight, and the x-wing rises up.

‘Let’s show ’em how we do it in the Resistance, yeah?’

BB-8 whees with delight.

‘Hell yeah!’

Poe punches it.

At precisely the same moment as the new arrivals send out a dampening pulse that knocks out the electronics in everything in a thirty-click radius.

BB-8 screams then falls sharply silent. The column under Poe’s hand shocks him, then falls limp as the ship drops back onto its landing gear with a crunch. One lone, apparently forgotten TIE fighter falls in an inelegant tumble from above and explodes messily in the trees. And the red lights of the perimeter fence wink out as one.

‘Oh shit,’ breathes Poe, as stormtroopers begin to spill from an unseen carrier landed behind the bunkers, and circle the landing bay to surround the x-wing.

But Poe’s not looking at them. He’s looking past that fence. That fence that was hot, and now isn’t. That fence that sends out a pulse of its own: constant, protective.

Outside, a long, low sound begins to build. A rumble at first. Like thunder.

That’s what they thought it was, on first landing. He’s seen the recon files. All those storms, keeping the comms clear. D’Qar, the perfect hideout.

But it isn’t thunder.

Poe watches the masked faces and the blasters lining up to kick his ass, and he hates the First Order just as much right now as he ever did, and he’s never been the praying type - but his lips move slow and silent in an old Yavin oath for those about to die; for those stolen kids who never asked to be brought up that way.

The rumble gives way to a roar, and Poe hears the fences clatter as they’re trampled; hears screaming and blasters and grim dragging sounds; doesn’t watch.


	3. Chapter 3

Finn wakes up out of a suspiciously deep sleep, and endures a humiliatingly simple sequence of tests - stand up, turn your head - before Kalonia will allow him out of his bed and down this ship’s narrow corridors into the briefing room.

Which is fine, actually, because his head is swimmy with drugs and he still feels shivery, a queasy blur around his edges if he moves without thinking it through first - and he wants to be here. Needs to be.

Because Poe isn’t, still, and it feels somehow like it’s his job to fix that, now. Saving Poe. Like he did before.

Only not exactly like he did before, please, because - because if he’s - and there’s no one there to -

‘Aris? They were Rebel sympathisers, back in the day...’

‘But staunch Republicans since. They’ll cleave to whatever’s nearest to the old Senate, General - or whatever’s presenting itself as such.’

‘Unlike our merry band of guerrillas, you mean?’

General Organa breaks off, dropping her holo onto the table as he hesitates in the shadows cast by the makeshift briefing room’s screens. He shuffles nearer, blue light glinting off the walking frame helping him stand.

‘Finn? Come in, come in. We need your help, kid. You might know something we don’t. In fact, I’d say that’s a given.’ She smiles, beckoning him forward into a circle of Resistance officers and fighters, their faces all marked with exhaustion. ‘You’ve met Statura, I think. Ackbar, Wexley. Kun.’

Finn steps forward, feeling cowed by the context and acutely aware of the way his hands are shaking with the effort of holding him upright, but ignoring both. ‘Yes, sir. Seems someone’s missing since last time I was in a briefing.’

The General’s mouth presses into a thin line. ‘More than one, I think?’

Finn’s eyes crash closed, his face warm. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t - ’

The General cuts him off with a shake of her head, not unkindly.

‘We lost many valued fighters that day. And more again during our evacuation, who gave their lives providing essential cover for the fleet. We’re gonna lose more, looking for a new safe haven. We mourn and honour them all.’

The gathered officers all lower their heads, in a gesture Finn doesn’t recognise.

‘And the ones that are still alive, that we could go back for?’ he presses.

The General tilts her head. Frowns. ‘Poe.’ It’s a statement more than a question, though she still glances at her officers, as if gauging their expectations alongside his own.

‘If Poe is alive - _if_ he is - he’ll find a way home. Even if we don’t have one yet.’ Her face softens at his intake of breath. ‘Believe me: if anyone can, he will.’

‘Damn straight,’ offers Wexley. ‘Dipped in pure luck when he was a baby, that one. Only possible explanation.’

‘So, we just - wait? And - hope?’

Finn doesn’t understand. He’s been watching: in the med bay, half-awake; here, on this too-small transport ship. The Resistance, they’re all friends; mess halls and nicknames, friendships you weren’t even asked to hide. Why don’t they care? Finn cares. And OK, Finn saved Poe that one time and that’s why Finn is here and not dead or being reconditioned by the Order and he’s grateful, and he really liked that jacket, but that’s not it. Not all of it. Even the Order doesn’t discard its own - because it hates waste and a dead pilot is a ship that might be salvaged and ok, Finn really wishes he hadn’t thought about that, but there it is.

And Poe isn’t dead.

He isn’t.

Poe was on a mission. And when he got back home they were all gone. And that’s not fair.

‘I could go,’ mumbles Finn. ‘I’m not valuable. I could just go - and - ’

Except he doesn’t know how to fly, and -

‘Returning to D’Qar would render the evacuation pointless,’ says the General softly, stepping up and beckoning a chair over for Finn, noting the sweat on his brow and the way he’s pressing down hard on the walker. ‘And it would lead them straight back to us. The Resistance would be crushed in a matter of moments. I don’t believe Poe would want that, do you?’

Finn sits and feels stupid, and worthless, and like someone who got stabbed in the back by a lightsaber not so long ago and needs to lie down.

‘And you certainly are valuable, by the way,’ the General adds, touching his shoulder gently. ‘These systems - are you aware of Order presence there? The scale of the fleet... command systems...’

Finn helps. It’s all he can do.

Then Kalonia interrupts with a stern tut, and ushers him back to bed where he lies stiff and guilty beside the empty chair, and tries to forget everything he knows about landing squadron protocols and the lifespan of captured enemies.

 

 

*

 

 

Poe closes his eyes to it all.

The cockpit muffles the sounds outside but not enough, not as much as he’d like, as the creatures race past towards their prey.

Gradiks, they’re called - or some species near enough to match up the habits and habitat. The ones he’s seen before are tall as he is and about as wide, furred and fanged with long forelimbs that help them bound across the ground, and heads that are mainly mouth. Carnivorous. And, apparently, hungry.

There’s blaster fire, and he hears orders being issued, and battalions falling into position.

Then - more sounds.

It’s a relief to hear the people about to shoot him become very much incapable of doing so - and Poe is acutely aware of how terrible that is. That could be Finn out there. It’s not. But that’s not the point. This is senseless, all of it.

If it makes it any better, he’s pretty sure he’s not far behind. Black One’s internal systems keep rebooting and failing, with an enticing whine each time, and he can hear the interested snuffling of huge mouths each time. Once or twice the whole ship rocks, nudged by a heavy furry limb, and if that pressure hits the damaged section, it’ll fold like a tin can and he’ll be presented as the dessert course. And it’s not like he can run.

The screaming, the growling, the rending and crunching - it goes on. Then it dies away, leaving only the quieter sounds of pacing monsters, grunting as if pondering their next move.

BB-8 is uncharacteristically silent and it takes Poe a while - too long - to realise it’s not common-sensical lying low but a problem.

‘BB-8?  Hey, buddy, you with me? You want to give me a sign back there?’

He’s whispering - doesn’t dare risk anything else - but there’s nothing. No response. The pulse has knocked the droid out like a sucker punch.

Or worse.

Poe refuses to accept the notion of worse.

But he’s still on his own, for now - surrounded by giant and now extremely bored and undistracted Gradiks, in a ship that can’t move and a body that keeps spiking with adrenaline and is now noticeably running low. He’s shaky, hands reaching on instinct for the stick and fingers bumping awkwardly just too high to make clear contact. Sweat cold on his neck. His breathing suddenly loud in his ears.

He thinks he might pass out - until there’s a low animal moan from somewhere to his left and Poe freezes, suddenly utterly alert as he catches sight of movement inches from his face. The misted-up side panel of the cockpit darkens suddenly as blackness occupies the space; a greyish furred body, pressed against the plastisteel. The ship rocks, tilts, groans as the body shifts its weight, pushing harder.

It’s trying to flip him, Poe thinks in panic, scrambling for the release on the harness because even if he can’t run he’d like to have the option to, you know, crawl away from the massive thing that wants to eat him. But the rocking continues, the body smearing itself against the panel, back and forth. It’s not trying to flip him. It’s trying to scratch an itch.

Not that kind. At least, he really hopes not - though from the rumbly noise of satisfaction the creature makes before it bounds away out of sight it’s hard to be certain. That’s gonna make a hell of a story for the mess, anyways. So Poe shakes the sweat out of his eyes and remembers to breathe and gets on with not dying so he still gets to tell it.

The navicomputer’s still out so there are no life-sign readings to go on; just the view through his smeary cockpit, as far as he can bear to crane around. He counts seven slow-moving Gradiks, now sated from their feed - but still deadly if they see prey they can kill and store for later. He still has that blaster down by his feet. If he could get them nearer to one another... get them nearer to the bunker... one shot and boom.

It means reaching down, and finding the blaster, and opening the canopy to fire it, and obviously that part where the big monsters all line up in the right place. Not to mention that Destroyer that’s up there and is probably not going to think seven Gradiks is much to worry about. But: one problem at a time.

How do you make a herd of Gradiks move as one towards a target?

There’s an unexpected bellow of engines nearby - and to Poe’s amazement another troop carrier appears, spilling another battalion onto the deck. This time they don’t even engage. They just line up in front of the main base doors, and stand still, weapons raised but plainly helpless as the creatures gather, pause, paw at the ground.

That’s how you make a herd of Gradiks move as one towards a target.

Make the target a living one.

Poe barely has time to register the sick horror of what he’s seeing before the Gradiks launch their attack with a howl - and the base blows - and the explosion rips through Black One like a quake.

 

 

*

 

 

This time, Poe remembers to take the blaster with him when he crawls out of Black One.

It doesn’t matter.

The bay is a wreck of melted twisted armour and charred flesh and he’s almost relieved when the hum overhead signals the arrival of another carrier, so he can shoot some of these bastards dead.

Except apparently there was another battalion on the ground, that didn’t have to line up to be sacrificed - and are now lining up behind him, weapons raised, ready to put him down.

‘Drop your weapon, pilot.’

Poe wants to spin round and spray them with blaster fire. He wants to take out ten of them for his one.

But he wants to live. More than anything. So he lets the blaster clatter to the ground and bites back a gasp as they close in and knock him onto his knees, fastening his hands behind his back and marching him - slowly, his legs not complying - to the waiting ramp of a troop transport.

‘The General wants to talk to you,’ declares a trooper as he’s clipped into some sort of harness in the loading bay of the transport. Like cargo.

‘I’ll bet he does,’ murmurs Poe.

‘We don’t,’ says the trooper, as Poe feels the transport lift, and seven other troopers line up. Faceless. But flexing their fists, and keen to make their mark.


	4. Chapter 4

Snap sidles up, steering Finn to a tiny side room, and standing guard in the doorway by planting his considerable height across it.

There’s a woman inside. Kare Kun; a pilot, he’s seen her before.

‘If I show you something I’m not meant to, can you keep your mouth shut?’

Finn frowns. There are a lot of answers to that question. But Snap nods meaningfully in the doorway, and Poe trusts Snap, Finn knows that much, so he nods too.

Kare looks unconvinced, but she slides her hand across a screen and a series of vids flow across.

‘That’s Poe,’ murmurs Finn, recognising not just the x-wing but the barrel-roll, even from nothing but a navicomputer tracking it through pixellated space. Shut up. Poe’s one hell of a pilot and it is totally ok and usual to notice his particular style of flying, yes it is, for definite. ‘Where is this? When?’

‘Two days ago,’ says Snap, still wary in the doorframe. Then he looks grim. ‘Wait for it.’

The x-wing dips and slows as it approaches a moon; the vid switches to a surface cam tracking the approach. There’s a crackle - then three torpedoes launch from the ground without warning. The x-wing - Poe - there’s no way to evade, but he tries anyway, and instead of blowing it out of the sky the ship takes the impact of all three along one side as it tries to wheel away.

The vid cuts out.

‘What the hell? No! Show the rest!’

Kare shakes her head. ‘That’s all we got.’

It replays, slow, showing the impact again.

Finn glares at the pair of them mutinously. ‘You want me to think he’s dead and leave it alone? I won’t do that.’

Snap laughs out loud.

‘We want you to know what we know,’ he says, his face softening as he registers Finn’s very real concern. ‘Our boy Poe flew away. Wings clipped a little, sure. But he made it out. I don’t doubt it.’

Finn stares at the recording, willing it to prove Snap right. It doesn’t. But Finn’s not a pilot. So if they say Poe made it, he did.

Finn always figured he would’ve.

‘Wait,’ says Finn slowly. ‘So - you’re saying - ’

Kare sighs. ‘We figure he was in good enough shape to make it back to D’Qar, for sure. That system - it’s not far, he could’ve made it even if the hyperdrive was down. But he won’t have been able to travel far, once he realised we were gone. So: we’ve narrowed it down.’

She spins the control and a map appears, floating between them. There are six planets lit up as possible targets.

‘You - you think we should look for him? On six different planets?’

Finn feels a nervous rumble in his chest, recalling what the General said. If they go back to D’Qar they might as well never have left. This... this doesn’t seem different. And a planet is very large, he knows now, not like a ship. And there are six of them.

Snap smiles. ‘We’d scan from atmo. See if we picked up his signal. BB-8’s out there somewhere broadcasting something totally unrepeatable, believe me. Since they woke up, Artoo taught all the droids a few things they picked up from a Huttese skiff. We’re all regretting letting that happen, am I right?’

Kare laughs, then catches Finn’s baffled look, and straightens her spine. ‘We’re taking this seriously kid, I promise. We’re just trying to keep from getting crushed by it all while we’re at it, you see?’

Finn feels approximately twelve. He nods.

‘If we were to run a little unofficial recon, we might need you to cover our backs,’ Snap says, his voice less certain now than it was. ‘Turn some heads? Distract till we’re back on board - hopefully with our mutual friend in tow. Or at least his location so we can pick him up.’

Finn nods so hard his head might come off.

 

 

 *

 

 

‘I’ll give you one thing,’ Hux says, with a sigh. ‘The Resistance does appear to be well-named.’

He tilts Poe’s head back with one prim gloved fingertip under the chin. The angle makes blood run sickeningly down Poe’s throat, and he struggles not to gag. Coughs instead. It splatters on Hux’s face, making him rear back in disgust.

Poe likes that.

He doesn’t like anything else.

He keeps fading blessedly out - then jerking back to wakefulness at the jab of a hypo and the queasy wash of drugs working into his system. He feels weird. Way too conscious than is reasonable. Still not quite awake. 

‘Hitting me in the face didn’t work last time,’ Poe croaks out, trying to stand up straighter and regretting it as pain flares out loud across his arm and his ribs and his leg. ‘And last time I was in one of these chairs - chair? table? what even is this thing? - your boy Kylo had rocked up to finish the job by now. Guess he’s not on the team any more, huh?’

It’s not a complaint. It is, to be honest, about the last hope Poe’s clinging onto. He needs to know how hard to grip. All this, this is not his idea of a fun time, is on the absolute edge of too much but - he can’t do that again. On the Decimator he thought he would just disintegrate; that when all the screaming and the scouring was done he would just crumble away to nothing. He’s pretty sure some of him did. So he can’t do that again. Won’t. Can’t.

Hux stiffens, his mouth pinching tight as he fastidiously dabs the blood spatter from his cheek and lapel, and Poe knows for sure he doesn’t have to.

‘The First Order has no need of wizardry or folklore,’ says Hux curtly, returning to parade stance. ‘Our strength comes from clear leadership and moral rectitude.’

‘And hitting people in the face.’

Hux gives him such a look of dismay Poe can’t help but laugh. It hurts. Everything hurts: his face, half of which feels swollen like a blumfruit and twice as mushy; when  he breathes he can feel burnt fabric pulling at burnt skin, raw places. But Hux is so... comical. It’s all comical. A child’s idea of power: what I want, when I want it. And a petulant stamp of the foot when it fails.

Except for how that petulant stamp keeps killing millions of people.

Poe wonders when he’s going to throw up all that blood he’s been swallowing, and really hopes it’s soon. Hux’s boots are way too clean.

But Hux wheels away before he gets the chance.

‘You’ll be pleased to hear there will be no more hitting,’ he says reedily, circling the tiny cell.

‘What’s next? Hair-pulling? You going to pinch me?’

It comes out slurred and he's not even sure Hux could've heard it - until he stills.

Hux keep his hands clasped behind his back as he completes his circle, halting directly to the side of the chair and leaning in.

‘Your public execution,’ Hux says, with a twitch of triumph at the corner of his lip.

Well, he did ask.

‘Since you are so very reluctant to tell us where you Resistance friends have fled to, we are of course unable to contact them directly to share this thrilling development. But! Oh! What fortune. Your x-wing’s transceiver is intact.’

Poe’s eyes slide sideways and he feels a grim roil of dizzy fear in his chest as he recognises what that means; what Hux means, smiling down his nose, enjoying his reaction.

‘We’ll be sure to transmit the footage through it,’ Hux continues, his eyes gleaming with a disturbing zeal. ‘The entire Resistance - and their handful of sympathisers - will watch your ignoble death.’

Poe swallows.

Eyes front, kid. Don’t you dare. You got this. Every pep talk he ever gave.

‘I’ll be sure to give ’em a wave,’ he rasps out.

Hux steps into his line of sight and frowns in faux sympathy. ‘Oh. I am sorry. I’m afraid with what we have planned, that’s rather unlikely.’

Hux spins on his heel, nodding to the guard to open the cell door as a sour dose of uncomplicated terror swishes through Poe’s gut. Then Hux hesitates on the threshold, turning his head. ‘Unless you’ve had a change of heart?’

He lingers. Just a fraction too long.

It’s exactly what Poe needs. Hux is still desperate to know where they’ve gone; still has no idea of their location; is willing to threaten a kill to beg it off him.

They’re safe.

That was always the best-case scenario, from the moment he touched down: Poe dead, everyone safe. The First Order isn’t just kicking the shit out of him on a whim; they really want to know, and while they don’t there’s still hope.

Poe closes his eyes, and lets his tired sore battered head fall back against the cold metal headrest, and grins as the door hums closed, leaving him alone and in peace and happy.

 


	5. Chapter 5

‘We got it,’ says Snap, his eyes bright like stars.

Finn’s heart leaps - until Kare shakes her head.

‘We got something,’ she clarifies. ‘Maybe. Probably.’

‘Shut the hell up and take the credit, you big nerd,’ says Pava, giving her a slap in the chest. ‘If you hadn’t been out there, we’d have flown right on by.’

Finn enjoys the easy camaraderie the pilots enjoy, admires it, envies it - but right now he wants to set it on fire. ‘Did you find Poe?’ he asks, probably louder than is polite.

Snap grins. ‘Yes!’

‘No,’ says Pava, at the same time.

Kare groans. ‘We picked up a tap code. From D’Qar atmosphere.’

‘Old-school comms,’ explains Snap quickly,  registering Finn’s clenched fists. ‘Signalling Poe’s arrival, and vocal disappointment at how we’d all just fucked off  and left him there.’

‘So - he made it? The ship wasn’t too damaged? He flew back to the base?’

Finn kind of wants to cry at how they are eking this out like a festival surprise.

But Kare is nodding. ‘We know that much. But there’s one hell of a First Order presence in orbit. Best we can figure is that he made it in to land. Beyond that...’

‘He’ll be fine,’ says Snap blithely. ‘He’ll have picked up the bad guys on the way in. Landed someplace else. Someplace safe.’

‘What about all the - ?’

Pava performs a mime that Finn doesn’t wholly understand, but seems to involve teeth, and flailing limbs, with claws.

Kare and Snap exchange nervous looks.

‘It’s Poe,’ says Snap with confidence. ‘He’ll figure something out.’

‘For sure,’ says Kare, sounding less convinced.

‘Uh,’ says Pava, glancing between the two of them, then looking at Finn. ‘I mean. I guess. It’s not totally impossible.’

That’s good enough for Finn. ‘So - when do we go rescue him?’

There’s an uneasy pause.

‘We are _going_ to rescue him? Right?’

There’s a loud urgent slapping of footsteps on concrete outside, and a face appears peering into the small cell. Nien Nunb, yelling something high-pitched and frantic that Finn can’t understand.

The others look like they don’t either.

‘Seriously?’ Kare looks wary, like she can’t believe it. Snap has a hopeful spark in his eye.

Nien’s response doesn’t need translation: evidently whatever it is, he means it.

‘Guess we didn’t need to sneak around after all,’ says Pava, spinning to follow as they all hurry out into the corridor. ‘They’ve picked up his signal, Finn! Poe’s transceiver. It’s broadcasting - which means we can pinpoint exactly where he is.’

Finn feels something like a generator switching on inside his chest, warm and thrumming, and he runs, even though he kind of can’t and isn’t supposed to and everything hurts, but he runs behind them all to get to the briefing room.

There’s a crowd already. The General, Statura, Ackbar, gathered, solemn.

And then he sees the viewscreen, and Poe’s bruised face filling it up, and the light goes right out in a heartbeat.

 

 

*

 

 

Poe is an optimist. He has to be. You don’t fight on the side with a tiny fleet of tiny fighters, and three troop carriers - one of which made out of an old cattle barn welded onto an engine, basically – and half the pilots you need with less than half of the training he’s had. You have to have hope. It’s what the Resistance eats for breakfast, or they may as well all go home.

But even Poe’s got to admit: this is a stumper.

It takes him a time to get through the chemical fuzz of his mind to figure out why his shoulders hurt so much. Why he’s cold. Why it’s so bright. Then he understands. He’s back out in the hangar, out in the open, strung from the battered wreck of Black One. Chained. Flexisteel round his wrists, tight and cutting. His good leg, thankfully, just reaching the ground to give a little purchase. But exposed; helpless; and, it seems, broadcasting. There’s a dronecam hovering right in front of his face, the kind with long-range signal. It tracks his every blink.

He cranes around as far as he can, but there’s no firing squad.

There’s no one, as far as he can see. Just the hum of the fences: the hum he remembers, the one that says they’re on.

So they figured that out.

And now they know what happens when they turn them off.

The dronecam whirrs as the lens adjusts for a close-up on Poe as he figures it out too.

He’s about to be reality TV. Eaten alive, for the entertainment of the masses and the suppression of rebellion.

But they won’t be doing that yet, apparently; not until Hux has had his moment in the spotlight. Another drone is hovering in front of the wrecked tatters of the base. This one isn’t filming: it’s projecting. A holo, shimmery but clear and life-size, flickers into sight.

Hux’s face isn’t any more welcome now it’s not really there. He’s in dress uniform, slick from the fresher and smiling disturbingly.

‘Welcome,’ his reedy voice announces to the drone, now filming Poe and the holo. ‘It is my sad duty to inform you that another pocket of resistance has been located, and that the efforts of my dedicated recruits to maintain order and secure your personal safety within the Empire has again been distracted – by a handful of unruly terrorists. Rest assured! We have them in custody. However, this agent of the Resistance, by his actions, caused the deaths of two entire troop carriers. Their loss must not go unpunished. I hope this message reaches those who have most need to hear it. Your fight is futile, General, and your men will die, ignobly, as traitors deserve.’

Hux vanishes.

The holo flickers to 3D cam footage now. Poe, sprinting across the tarmac like a guy who did not in any way basically fall out of the sky on the way here. Troopers, chatting, casually walking: no weapons, no guile. Poe darting into a hiding place, waiting until the troopers are innocently massed together before the hangar doors – then hurling a bomb into the air in a perfect arc that sends bodies flying in a savage conflagration. They writhe in pain on the ground. The holo lingers on one, for a dramatic death rattle.

Fantastic.

Even Poe can see the telltale edges and flares that give it away: this is a fake. But it won’t matter. You tell a story people already believe, they believe it just a little more. And right now this is broadcasting across the galaxy and dragging the Resistance’s name even deeper into the mud.

He’s been called a terrorist to his face. Called a monster, a murderer. He’s been on recruitment drives and found himself hightailing it off planet before the brute squad can be called. But this: this will be a new level of mistrust.

He doesn’t know how they can pull back from this one. He has faith; absurd confidence, in himself, in everyone around him. He always has hope. But this time… it’s harder to see here the light’s going to get in.

Not impossible. But harder.

The dronecam is back on him now and he wishes he’d had time to school his face into something other than the bleak expression he’s pretty sure is widecasting right now, wishes he’d time to send a message back to the old team. Sorry, guys. Guess I left you a mess to clear up, and this time I’m not going to be around to help you out, most likely, unless…

So, OK.

He’s still chained to the broken ship.

There’s still a fence they can switch off and send vicious murderous beasts his way.

There’s still the holo replaying of himself, now cast as murderer of the defenceless.

And, if he’s going to be completely honest, he’s not exactly feeling at the top of his game, physically speaking. Mentally speaking. Even at all, in any way, at all.

But he’s here, and he’s thinking, and it’s not nothing. He can fight till the end, at least. That drone is broadcasting live. So he’ll keep fighting back till this is done. Badly. About as ineffectual as it gets. Potentially kind of humiliating and pathetic. But fighting. They can’t take that away.

He opens his mouth to yell out an off-the-cuff little speech that’ll make up just a little for this shitshow of a way to go out – and nothing comes out. Instead there’s a choking sensation in his throat that cuts off breath at the same time as his words. He tries again, with the same result. Even the little groan of frustration that instinctively produces leaves him breathless, gulping in air past the constriction of his throat.

Silenced, then. He’s so sloppy with whatever was in the hypos to keep him awake he didn’t even feel it, but he knows what it is. They give it to troopers when they’re injured and under transportation, to keep them quiet; Finn told him. Screaming people are bad for morale. They fixed it so the harder you scream the tighter the constriction – so he’s gonna pass out if he keeps at it.

With a clunk, the hum of the fences falls quiet.

Oh, hells.


	6. Chapter 6

Finn doesn’t know how to fly or how to read a nav chart or how to walk in a straight line right this second, but he’s running anyway.

It takes a locked door to stop him.

Then the clang of Snap and Kare’s feet on the deck chasing him down.

‘I’m not sitting around and waiting and _watching_ – ’ Finn spits out, knowing that they are back in the sit room.

Poe would hate that. Anyone would hate that.

‘Same, pal, ok?’ Kare almost laughs. ‘We just came out of hyperspace, didn’t you notice?’

Finn did not notice. ‘So – we’re going to D’Qar?’

Snap shakes his head. ‘No. We ran away from there so the First Order didn’t kill us. Remember?’

Finn sets his shoulders. ‘Then give me a ship. Or - set me down somewhere. Or – ’

‘Or shut up so we can tell you what we’re actually doing?’

Snap’s eyebrows are meaningfully raised.

Finn can do that.

Finn can definitely, definitely do that.

 

*

 

 

Out in the green, Poe hears a long howling wail, and the bellows of creatures calling to one another. The ground pulses beneath his feet.

They’re coming. They’re coming, and he’s chained, on display, and there’s nothing he can do to -

Poe closes his eyes.

Behind him, inside the battered ship, he hears the tiniest hum of electricity, like a circuit rebooting.

A muted beep of inquiry follows.

‘Yes,’ Poe tries to say, his throat closing over at once. He throws out a thumbs up instead, knocking at the flank of the ship with the back of his hand as he gasps for air.

_Yes, that, do that, buddy. Yes, please. Hell yes._

There’s a happier soft beep. Then the dronecam trained on Poe takes a sudden swooping dive, almost crashing before it regains level flight and approaches the ship, juddering.

A new holo appears from the other drone: smaller, low quality, but just as recognisable. The real footage, pulled from whatever net the Order techs used to doctor it. Squads lining up to be killed. Death and destruction, under orders. Poe closes his eyes to it; once was more than enough.

The dronecam judders again then reluctantly succumbs to BB-8’s control completely.

The holo skips to the start and plays on, over and over, a pattern of brutality.

Poe knows Hux will be watching, and wonders dimly if he’s coming back to yell about it as he hears a sound of engines in the air.

Poe figures he’s welcome to try. He can see movement in the trees now beyond the perimeter fence. The Gradiks are waking up.

BB-8 murmurs something and Poe misses it. His head’s falling forwards now. He doesn’t think he can keep the weight on this one leg now and the pull across his shoulders is too much now the hypo blur is fading. Everything hurts too much. His throat is still tight, like there’s a hand at his neck cutting off his breath and he’s too tired to lift his head or to think it away. He’s too tired.

It’s enough, now. He doesn’t need to be here for this part. The part where he dies. He can skip that. No one can be mad at him for that.

He’s still really sorry about those troopers dying that way.

He’s really sorry about Black One.

Sorry, BB-8. Thanks, buddy. You did good.

He thinks that’s enough now.

 

 

*

 

 

‘We should have it. I never knew there was a thing that could shut him up.’

‘Snap!’

‘What? Come on. He’s quiet. Isn’t it nice?’

‘No.’

That’s Finn, Poe thinks, and he’s definitely confused now because Finn can’t be here. Finn is in recovery and Snap is somewhere far far away and Poe is – Poe is –

Choking and gasping and trying to breathe like he’s underwater, like something is gripping tightly and squeezing until he – until he –

‘Better? Good. That’s good. That’s awesome. Just – try not talking, Poe, ok?’

It really does sound like Finn.

‘You are on a losing bet there, my friend,’ says Snap’s voice, deep and chuckling.

He’s fuzzy again and he shouts about it because it’s not fair, it’s not his fault he crashed – well, kind of not – and he didn’t ask anyone to give him hypos even if there are big animals eating him, except now he can’t breathe again and he hates this, he really –

He’s awake again and this time when he swallows there’s something nearer normal in his throat.

‘Don’t get overexcited, now. It takes a day or two to clear. No talking, ok? Don’t answer that.’

Poe gets his eyes open and it’s Finn, it really is, and he finds there is a string of words on his lips to share with this bright and beaming face that is full of life and light and slight shyness at exactly how happy Poe is to see him – and he has to make do with a smile.

They both smile for a while.

Poe feels a little goofy.

He finds he doesn’t mind.

Finn explains everything, in a giddy way that makes very little sense. Poe grasps something about codes and rescues that didn’t need to be rescues, exactly. He learns that when a Gradik digests its dinner of stormtrooper, the plasteel armour releases a highly toxic substance and they might just have wiped out the indigenous species of D’Qar. He learns that the First Order are pretty pissed at him. He hears direct from the droid’s own happy beeping that BB-8 is now officially on the Most Wanted list, and is pretty proud of it. He falls asleep. He wakes up. Finn’s still there.

‘They told me you did this, while I was out,’ Finn tells him. ‘Just stayed here, by the bed, telling me stories and stuff. So, I want to do that.’

Poe thinks his throat might be better now, the next time he wakes up. But he stays quiet. He lies still. He lets Finn’s voice warm the space beside his bed.

 

 


End file.
